Infantry getting tangled up in Medium siege towers

**MooseUpNorth** · January 31, 2009, 01:36 PM

Had an annoying thing happen a few times, where I was using five siege towers against large walls. Two units (One Praetorian Cohort, one Legionary Cohort) made it up their towers just fine, but got seriously mauled when the other three got tangled up most of the way inside the tower. The troops caught outside the tower were slowly getting picked off by the city defenses, and never joined the battle at the top.

I haven't found any other threads discussing the issue, but I'm assuming this is a well known problem? Is there a solution other than stopping the troops inside the towers then restarting them until they're all inside their tower?

**Xavier Dragnesi** · January 31, 2009, 01:58 PM

Yeah, siege towers are a bit of a pain in that it takes ages for the whole unit to move into them then out onto the top, and the men always come out one by one. There isn't really a solution except placing your tower in a place where the arrows from the towers can't hit it, and away from any defenders. This is why I prefer ladders and sap points over siege towers.

**MooseUpNorth** · January 31, 2009, 02:04 PM

Well, actually, I meant there's a problem where the unit stops entering the tower (specifically the towers for large stone walls or bigger) and those inside never actually come out the top.

The towers you build against ordinary Stone Walls (the non-shooty kind) seem to work just fine.

**mattfriend0** · January 31, 2009, 03:53 PM

when i use 4 seige towers only 2 of them on avrage work they just try to walk in the bottem and walk out agin and u cant move that unit in the battle agin

**Flavius Silvanus** · January 31, 2009, 04:37 PM

And this same bug is in Medieval 2. It just takes one soldier to get hung up, and the whole unit is borked.

**Scutarii** · January 31, 2009, 08:47 PM

Sieges are incredibly buggy in RTW. Unfortunately, pathfinding and whatnot can't really be modded...

**Sextus Molestus** · February 01, 2009, 12:11 PM

Yeah, I've never really had much success with siege towers. I'd suggest using ladders - you can send mercenaries up them first to carve a little opening on the wall, and then send a better unit up to finish the job and take towers and gateways, depending on how many enemies are on the wall.

**RMSN NIKE** · February 02, 2009, 10:35 AM

Siege tower is the best siege engine. No damage done to the wall and low casualty done to the unit. Even when 5 archer units and 2 towers were shooting at me, since their target was the siege tower, not the unit.

When you use multiple towers, be very careful on the units that pushed them. It happened to me before that when I had 3 towers close together, the unit in the middle left its position and run into the left tower. When 2 units in 1 tower, they will get tangled in the tower and not moving forward. So always wait for the first unit to reach the top of the tower before sending in the second unit.

If you noticed too late about the merging of 2 units in one tower, move the second one out of the tower and move it in front of the tower they suppose to use, then double click(run) on the wall in front of the exit of this tower, not attack, but moving command, they will run up this tower without any problem. Then select the unit supposed to use the tower that got tangled up, also double click(run) moving command at the exit of this tower. They will move normally now.

I noticed this this problem from Kingdoms, where the Battle Position AI, I believe is better then Rome. Since in Rome, I can place majority of my troops in front of the gate, and the enemy will also do that, and left empty walls for my towers to land. But in Kingdoms, if the enemy has enough troops, they will spread all their troops on top of the gate, and in front of all tower landing points. And also it is easier to get archers in Kingdoms then Rome. Like when I was moving 3 towers with Order Swordsmen toward a city wall filled with 6 or more Mongolian Infantry. I lost about 2 soldiers per unit before reaching the wall, and then 3 or 4 more because of the tail of the unit did not fit into the tower for protection. And another time I realized 1 unit will not be useful on the wall except get shoot at by Mongol archers, I halted their movement inside the tower, with the walk plank closed, I only lost 3 or 4 soldiers due their horse archers run out of the city to shoot at the units tail. I only moved this unit onto the wall after all enemy units retreated from the attacks of my other 2 units that got onto the wall.

Oh, you will lose a lot more soldiers with ladders then towers, and morale too. since one time, also in kingdoms, I used 1 unit of Spear Militia to defend a piece of wall of Hamburg, against 3 units of Dismounted Huscarls. They came up 3 at a time from the ladder, and 1 unit at time. The first unit had lost at least 15 soldiers out of 60, maybe more, from my towers attack and my Pavise Crossbowmen, who has slow shooting and I placed them in the wrong position. Even though the DH has scare infantry trait, my Spear Militia held its ground and fought off the invaders. And this is only one of 3 ladder landing points. I held them off all with Spear Militias, and a pike mercenary at the broken gate against mounted Huscarls and the general, with help of my own general. Even though the casualty was high, but I destroyed the Danesh attackers with militia units, and they had more soldiers and units then me.